Unfortunately, banking executives continue to receive mixed messages from customers. Customers rarely use the branch as banks continue to improve digital capabilities. However, customers select their bank based on having easy access to a local branch. So, the directive to a banker is: spend lots of money to build and maintain branches even though your customers will rarely visit them. In turn, as the number of overall transactions goes down in the branch, the cost per transaction creeps up.

They definitely are leaving out the upfront costs of implementing the new capabilities in the digital channels that will draw consumers away from the branch. I think that they were wise to choose mobile check deposit as an example because it is an technology that many banks have already adopted, and those that haven't have probably reconciled themselves to the fact that they will need to by now.

I wonder how many organizations will miss the point and focus on the cost savings of scaling back branches without making the necessary investments in digital channels? It also would be interesting to get estimates from Javelin about the potential costs of those investments -- I'm guessing the $1.5 bln in savings number is a bit misleading because some of that savings will go into the new channels and related support services.